St. Landry democrat., 1887-04-02
TALMAHE'S SERMON.
Worus Of Cheer and Consolation
for the Disheartened
Christ The Great Exemplar-He Who Asks
Shall Reccvc-DeIays Are Danger
distributing and Apt
illustrations

Rev T. Dewitt Talmage preached on q
recent Sabbath in the Second Presby-
terrain Church at Kansas City, Mo-. being
on visit to that city. His subject was
"Cheer for the Disheartened,' his text
being:
No man cared for my soul-Psalm, cxiii, 4.
Mr.. Talmagc said:
David, the rubicund lad, had become
the battle-Worn warrior. Three thousand
armed men in pursuit of him, he had hidden
in the cave Of Engedi, near the coast of
the Dead sea. Utterly tagged out with
the pursuit, as you have often been worn
out with the trials of life, he sat down
and cried out:
No man cared for my soul.
If you should fall through a hatchwav,
Or slip through scaffolding, or drop
through a skylight, there would be hun
dreds Of people who would come around
and pick up your body and carry it to the
home or to the hospital. l saw great
crowd Of people i'll the street, and l asked:
"What is the matter?"
And I found out that a poor laboring
man had fallen under sunstroke, and all
our eyes wero filled with tears at the
thought Of his distracted wife and DESC
lated home.
We are all sympathetic with physical
disaster. but how little sympathy for spir-
itual woes: There are men ir this house
who have come to middle-life who have
never yet been once personally accosted
about their eternal welfare. A great ser-
mon dropped into an audience of hundreds
of thousands will do its work; but if this
world is ever to b. brought to God it will
be through little sermons preached by pri-
vate Christians to an audience
of one. The sisters letter, post
marked at the village-the word ut
tered in your hearing, half of smiles and
half of tears-the religious postscript to
business letter--the carl left at the door
when you had some kind of trouble-the
anxious look Of some one across a chur CHI
aisle while an earnest sermon was being
preached, swung you into the kingdom of
God.
But there are hundreds of people in this
house who will take the word that David
used in the past tense and employ 1t in the
present tense, an cry out:
mo man carcs for my soul"
You feel as you go out day by day in
the tug and jostle Of life that it is every
man for himself. You can endure the
pressure of commercial airs, and would
consider it impairment for any one to ask
you whether you arc making or losing
money But there have been times when
you would have drawn your check for
thousands of dollars if some one would
only help your soul out of its perplexities.
There are questions about your higher
destiny that ache, and distract and agon
ize you at times. Let no one suppose that
because you are busy all day with hard
drv in
that your thoughts are no longer than
your yard-stick and stop at the brass.
headed nails of the store counter. When
you speak once about religious things you
think five thousand times
They call you wording You are not
wording. OF course you are Industrious
and keep busy, but you have had your
eyes opened to the realities of the next
world. You are not fool. You know
better than any one can tell you that a
few years at most will wind up your
earthly engagements and that you will
take residence in distant sphere where
all your business adroitness would be q
superiority. You. sometimes think till
your head aches about great religious sub
jects. You go down the street with your
eyes fixed on the pavement, oblivious Of
the passing multitudes, your thoughts
gone on eternal expedition. You
wonder if the Bible be true; how
much of it is literal and how much is igu-
rative; if Christ be God; if there is any
thing like retribution; if you are immor-
tai; if a resurrection will ever take place;
what the occupation of your departed kim
dred is; what you will be ten thousand
years from now. With cultured placid
ity of countenance you are on fire with
agitations of soul.
Oh, this solitary anxiety of your whole
life-time! You have sold goods to or
brought them from Christian people for
ten years, and they have never whispered
one word of spiritual counsel. You have
passed up and down the aisles of churches
with men who knew that you had no hope
of Heaven, and talked about the weather,
and about your physical health, and about
every thing but that concerning which
you most wanted to hear them speak,
your everlasting spirit. Times
without number have you felt in your
heart, if you have not uttered it with your
lips:
ssNo man cares for my SOUL"
There have been times when you were
pliable on the great subject of
religion. It was so, for instance, after
you had lost your property. You had a
great many letters blowing you up for be-
ing unfortunate. You showed that there |
had been concatenation of circum stanc-
es, and that insolvency was no fault Of
yours. Your creditors talked to you as
though they would have hundred cents |
on dollar or your life. Protest after pro-
test tumbled in on your desk. Men who |
used to take your hand with both of
theirs and shake it violently, now pass
you on the street with an almost imper-
ceptible nod. After six or eight |
hours of scalding business anxiety you
90 home, and you shut the door,
and throw yourself on the sofa, and you
feel in state of despair. You wish that
some one would come in and break up the
gloom. Every thing seems to be against
you. The bank against you. Your cred
tors against you. Your friends suddenly |
hacopne critical against YOU. All tho |